One Door From Heaven

had cried out when his aunt Lilly shot him so many years ago.
        Thuuuuuuud…
        Maze walls were collapsing, stacks of bundled newspapers and other trash falling into the walls beside them, triggering further collapses.
        Thuuuuuuud…
        The floor shook with the third crash, which proved to be the last one for the time being, but the tsunami kept coming, racing toward them, a smothering tide of smoke, so dense that as it came, it muffled the voice of the fire that continued to rage behind it.
        "Down!" Noah shouted.
        They couldn't outrun this. They could only hit the floor, press their faces to the well-worn tongue-and-groove, and hope that an inch of sustaining air might be compressed beneath the black cloud.
        Here, now. Oh, God. Darkness as deep as caves and crypts. And only a thin sour air even at the floor. Then thinner and more sour. And then no air at all, and then-
        The black tide relented, dissolved away from them, until they huddled together in a miraculous clearing, where the air tasted as sweet as that in a primeval forest, lacking the slightest scent of soot. The tsunami of smoke still rushed at them, over them, and past them, providing this impossible refuge, this saving eye of calm in the tumult.
        And unto them, out of the blinding masses, came a creature of such heart-stopping beauty that Noah might have fallen to his knees before it if he had not already been on the floor. As white as a fresh winter mantle in a pristine wilderness, the entity arrived utterly un-soiled by the storm of filth through which it had passed. The huge luminous golden eyes, which should have terrified Noah by virtue of their strangeness and by the directness of their regard, did not instill terror, however, but fostered a sense of peace. He was overcome by the humbling perception that this visitor saw him as no one previously had ever seen him, gazed into the secret heart of him, and was not offended by what it discovered there. No terror, no fear troubled him except the reverential fear called awe; instead, set loose was a joy that he hadn't been aware he contained, that all his life had been caged in his breast, and now flew free.
        Rising slowly to his feet, he looked wonderingly at Cass… Micky… Leilani. They were in the grip of the same emotions by which he himself had been overwhelmed. Magic was the moment, as when doves are delivered from thin air, but these wings were Noah's, the wings of pure elation.
        The enchanted being had arrived like a leopard, but it rose now and stood like a man, barely taller than Leilani, whom it approached and to whom it spoke, incredibly, in the voice of a young boy. In fact, this was perhaps the voice of Curtis Hammond: "You still shine, Leilani Klonk."
        "You too," said the girl.
        "You can't be broken."
        "I came broken."
        "Not in the heart."
        Tears overwhelmed the girl, and Noah-with Micky and Cass- moved to her. He didn't know what was happening here, didn't understand how this magical entity and Curtis Hammond could be one and the same, but his long-worn yoke of despair had lifted, and for the moment, he did not need to understand more than that the world had changed for him, forever. He touched Leilani's shoulder, Cass touched Noah's arm, and Micky took the girl's withered hand in hers.
        The golden eyes regarded each of them before lowering to Leilani once more. "Not in the heart," the apparition repeated. "Suffering can't crack you. Evil can't turn you. You're going to do great things in your life, Leilani Klonk, great and wonderful things. And I ain't just shovelin' horseshit at you, neither."
        Leilani laughed through her tears. Self-consciously, as though embarrassed by what had been said of her, she looked away from her enchanted rescuer, blinked up at the sea of soot and fumes churning across the top of their protective bubble, and said, "Hey, spaceboy, this sure is some neat trick with the smoke."
        "Smoke is just fine particles of matter. On the micro level, where will can win, I can move some of the particles from where they are to where I want them to be. It's really fewer molecules than in a deadbolt. It’s a little trick. I only have three tricks, really, and they’re all little ones, but useful."
        "Better than Batman," Leilani said.
        The apparition's smile proved to be as luminous as his eyes. "Gee, thanks. But it's an